Under the Waning Apple Tree

                                                         ---------------------------------------------------------

 We keep coming back to our experience again and

 again. Simply experiencing, experiencing. In time (and it may take years), love 

 will begin to flow from us, like water from a fountain, and all will be refreshed. 

                              ---- Open Mind, Women's Daily Inspiration for Becoming Mindful, Aug. 18

As an adult, I have spent a great deal of time opening into the hidden emotions, especially sadness, I was taught as a child not to feel. Along the way,I worked with a trusted therapist, with poetry, meditation and spiritual teachings to experience this part of my journey as growth. Along the way, I would also feel other things, of course! Joy! Gratitude! Laughter! But always: Is there sadness I am trying not to feel? What childhood experience does this remind me of? What am I longing for that I need to fill? Yesterday, then, sitting in the garden, I started with longing as has been habit. But then, as I recorded the moment as I sometimes do, something shifted. My voice tentative in my recorder, I said to my very self, "Yes, but wait. What else is here?" Not that I will never be sad or longing again. But when we give voice and expression to those things that burn in us and need our attention -- contrary to what we might think -- the burning will eventually stop. This is catharsis. This is true gratitude. And this is the voice recording, transcribed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

ORGANIC GRATITUDE

I sit on the bench under the waning apple tree

On a day when I can feel a bit of fall in the air.

I look around me at the vegetable garden and surrounding perennials, zapped after so much August.

My mind goes, as habit, to nostalgia and longing.

Summer, soon to leave. 

The fading hydrangea I planted for my mother after her horrific death 15 years ago; the peony for the last of my father's seven siblings; the azalea for my cousin/friend who died of cancer in her 50s.

I think of everything that went into this garden that is not here now -- small children helping put seeds in th ground, my husband with me.

A lot has happened during the life of this garden,

So much of it difficult -- 

My mother, my leukemia, Steve's dementia, children leaving, the demise of the marriage.

But then in the garden, the sun shifted in the sky.

"But oh, hasn’t so much good happened too?" I whispered, my voice quivering, plaintive, into my recorder. "Isn't so much good happening RIGHT NOW?" 

What of the turquoise rain barrel a friend made for me, an Impressionist painting with purple and yellow flowers that greets me every day, and now? 

What of these crisp new garden beds I enjoy every day that Benjie and and Chris put in for me in the spring?

What of the Tree of Life metal sculpture that brightens the center of the garden

And the wind chimes and the hummingbirds and the bird feeder behind my head?

I look around me and see there's a lot that still needs to be done in the yard

But what about all the wonderful things that have been done -- that ARE done and happening right now?

In my garden, the zinnias grow like caricatures of flowers

Prolific herbs bring me food and flavor every day 

The perennials are my unconditional companions and teachers

This lovely deck is my haven

I reach up to wrap my hand around the bough of the apple tree above my head

I swear I feel it pulsing,

Breathing with me, it says "Alive! Alive! Alive!"